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on Remodelaholic! In case you haven’t stumbled upon the awesomeness that is Remodelaholic, go now! Even better, subscribe! I get the posts emailed to me and the only downside is my to-do list keeps getting longer!

Luckily, my motivation to work on the house is not as lacking as my motivation to blog about our work on the house- even though the latter is much more pleasant and does not involve noxious fumes (unless our dog Stella happens to be in the room while I’m writing)!

Stella Rubella.

We finished working on our upstairs bathroom months and months ago, so let me guide you through its transformation! We did most of the work on this room ourselves, save for tiling the shower and sanding the floor.

Let us first enter the bathroom, just as it was when we bought the house, in all its salmon and Pepto-bismol pink glory:

East Wall, 2008.

Now, you’ll need to get a better idea of just how hideous the floor was. It was a very strange material (a cross between cork and linoleum) with a motif reminiscent of pebbles that was laid in strips that were peeling up at various points:

Bathroom floor/North Wall, 2008.

And how weird is the towel bar placement? Who puts towels above the toilet? Even hand towels didn’t work there. I’m assuming that the toilet paper holder was recessed into the wall at such a low point to accommodate hanging full-size bath towels- but that’s still too close to the toilet for comfort, in my opinion.

In this shot you can also see the absolutely horrible light fixture that was initially hanging over the vanity! Horrible!

* Our before shots don’t have preexisting light fixtures hanging (aside from the few we decided to keep, such as the white 1930s porcelain one hanging from the bathroom ceiling pictured above) because we had the electricians hang our new lights when rewiring the house. Since they had to convert the entire electric system from knob-and-tube, it made no difference to them if they re-hung the old lights or our lovely new ones. It was a bit of a gamble on our part because in order to do this we had to buy all of the lights before we actually owned the property- so had we lost the house somehow in the final negotiations, someone else would have greatly benefited from our investment. Our risk paid off, however, as we didn’t have to hang 8 new light fixtures ourselves!

Speaking of the vanity:

South Wall, 2008.

Oh, this vanity. Scratched up, too-dark wood? Check! Tiny gold-plate knobs that only doll-sized hands can pull (not to mention that tiny little faucet)? Check! Off-kilter, hanging door that won’t close? Check! Even in its heyday, I’m not so sure that accommodating this lovely piece of lavatory furniture was worth the effort of cutting into the molding of the built-in cabinet and baseboards. Just look at the big notch they took out to fit the sink!

The built-in cabinet is my favorite part of the bathroom. It’s just left of the sink and is really great for storing towels, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, and various bathroom sundries. It may not look like much here, but wait until you see how well it cleans up:

Built-in, South Wall, 2008.

Tired of pink? You haven’t tested the limits of your pink tolerance until you’ve been in this room with the door closed:

West Wall, 2008.

Maybe that’s not enough to send you over the edge? Scroll up and take another look at the ceiling. It’s pink, too. Still haven’t had enough?

West/North Wall, 2008.

Even the fungus growing between the plastic beige- and pink-flecked shower tiles was pink.

Not to mention that flesh-colored shower curtain. It’s womb-tastic.

One upside- look how cute the radiator is:

West Wall Radiator, 2008.

It’s small and shiny and adorable. And since it’s directly next to the shower it makes a wonderful towel warmer during these frigid Wisconsin winters. It’s the only thing we haven’t really changed in the entire room! Stay tuned for the during and after pictures!